August 09 2019.

I am currently a final year undergraduate at Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore pursuing Human Centered Design. The journey here was in no way straightforward. I was brought up in eight different schools in eight different places, instilling the need to adapt in order to chill. My father, a PhD. in Data Mining and a computer scientist from IIT Kharagpur, he has been a science influencer in my life. He would never ever give up on anything he’d purchase, till the end of it’s last bit, utilising every opportunity to fix a broken machine. My sister, who left the country at the age of 17 to pursue her engineering dream has been the inspiring risk-taker in my life. My little brother, an open-encyclopedia of knowledge always seemed to be no different to the clan, the science affinity. My mother, the backbone of this little home has been the most street-smart person I’ve seen, teaching me how to bargain prices to bits to get the right price we deserve. The armed forces culture was always influenced by the place we would be posted in, adapting to the practices, collecting souvenirs and socialising in a new setting. Very often, the need to bring something new to the table was felt and people would come together to make the experience worthwhile. My native and spoken languages being Hindi, English and Punjabi, I have also learnt some Gujrati, Sanskrit, German and Spanish (through DuoLingo). To recognize the necessity to ensure every body feels welcome, was a skill I acquired much sooner because I knew what it felt like to be new to a completely different culture. We would organise events, participate in tournaments and even form our musical band. I wouldn’t be this social if I wasn’t raised in such a sport environment.

I wasn’t not at the receiving end of “advice” to pursue engineering, vis a vis Computer Science because it continues to develop and emerge, never running out of reasons to do better. Little did they fathom that other problems from other fields also emerge rapidly, seeking attention and able-participants, because of their personal/professional biases. It made me want to bring something new to the table, expand their acceptance to other fields prospering and impacting the world. Afterall, people have varied interests but they continue to live in the same society. For high-school, I chose PCM and Economics to have the flexibility of majoring in science as well as utilising high school economics for my master’s some day. I did not know then, what I wanted to do, I just went with it because I was enjoying it. Professionally, I was aiming for a good engineering school in the country but I applied for a few design examinations for fun. I got into 2 out of 3 of my applications based on my general aptitude. I was motivated to risk it. Srishti offered me Business Systems and Service Design focussing on IoT and microelectronics, and I was curious so I took it! It was something about the ubiquity of electronics that struck with me, how it could be placed in any context to solve any problem. The emphasis on asking questions to learn more really had me wonder about new combinations that may work if placed consciously in the right context. (The idea of booking a taxi on the internet was berserk few years ago!) In a year’s time in school I realised the potential in Human Centered Design and felt it aligns with the kind of work I want to do. Both fields not entirely apart from each other, my understanding of design built from recognising that things operate at different levels and networking with different dependencies for expected outcomes, said the analytical side of me. But on the other hand, I wasn’t ready to accept that a perfectly stable solution is ever 100% accepted by the audience, and that is a real problem. To understand the why and try to unite for it, and accommodating that lingering affinity to be logical and scientific, I have found research in the umbrella of Human Computer Interaction to fit with me the most.

Growing up, my friends would make me draw their science diagrams for them. I would take responsibility to decorate the class blackboards and bulletins to monthly themes, and took it seriously. And in turn got called ‘creative’ for it. Decorating my room to address convenience to my laziness, keeping up with sports and studies and even helping my little cousins with their projects got me the same affirmation. I never quite understood what they meant by creative. All I know is, I could not do one thing for too long and I would want to try new iterations. It kept me occupied wondering all day. I absolutely love my parents for letting me be, I was the middle child- learning lessons early thanks to my sister and still getting to be bossy and elder because my brother would need it! I was rebellious in responsible ways always trying to optimise my way into probable solutions. I just took their word for acknowledging that about me and still stand by my choice to pursue design.

My father would always reason with me with one question, which I think is a great value I have appreciated. Ask yourself, “Do I need this, or do I want it?”. First, the mere difference between the definitions of both the words stood out, and grew more as actions in everyday life shaped into living by those words. In class 6, a group of 4 of my friends and I opened an Eco-club, where we would between classes, during lunchtime and before school arrive and build paper bags, make posters and developed sustainability initiatives in school. We managed to collect 200 kilos of tetra-packs in a week, and told our school how it is going to be recycled to make garage sheds. The impact of achieving something as worthy as that never stood up to me before this day.

Picture Navrachana Eco-club: Bottle-cap and bead drapes

I was a big fan of Disney movies and little visual effects their tv shows would pull off. Wizards of waverly place had me imagine all the possibilities of magic (human equivalent of getting things done automatically), emerging ideas possible to view visually instead of working hard to imagine. I wanted to pursue Animation and work in Burbank, California at the Disney Headquarters. I even managed to convince my parents. Until later with my peers I felt the pressure to be good at math, physics and chemistry. I tried my best, I was pretty average. I always understood things I could relate to. Early on, I understood the absence of relatability can hinder the learning experience. Why would anyone pursue anything if they didn’t feel strongly for it?

In my first year of college, my classmates from school were struggling to keep up with engineering, while I was wondering what else to do. I was so used to being surrounded by books, it took me time to unlearn and adapt. This was very strange, since I had been pretty sure I was good at adapting and making friends. Design being something I didn’t know so much about, I had days I felt introverted. The system of teaching at Srishti took me 8-10 months to get familiar with, I got a little better, but I wanted to challenge myself further. Two of my friends and I joined forces to learn web development, needing us to travel to Koramangala 2 hours away every weekend. We disliked repeating the same things in class and the recurring days of forgetting about the skill despite seemingly conscious efforts to acquire it. We spoke to our professor, who saw some potential in us and asked us for nothing but some time everyday. And we began a coding club that took on logical everyday problems we would use code to solve. The dynamic this skill made with my everyday college work was mind-opening. Random everyday thoughts carried value that spoke for itself because there would be an idea emerging there. For I understood why Einstein’s belief in Creativity being Combinatorial shaped the way of research. I learnt to recognise that different combinations work differently, and an emotional impact is barely apparent. Everyday was a new problem, keeping us occupied and classes less boring. The initiative lives on today as DecodeVector, utilising math to solve problems of the world.

With DecodeVector, I had a coding phase where everything I would look at I would spend a minute decoding the logic, in turn having me wonder the why and the how of their existence. As a daily practice, I learnt the ability to sit through with a problem despite the lack of leads, only for the little moments of joy that make instincts work. I wondered more about how simple logical machines were perceived and why people would think that way. I grew fondness for the growth in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and spent time coding a little being called Agent Dummy. Dummy would learn a new skill each day, as we decoded human instincts of behavior to logic and then as a superpower to the agent. Upon finding some approaches redundant, I would wonder how we do the same things so easy. I constantly wondered whether behavior is a consequence of our choices in the past- essentially making us capable of writing our own human algorithms. I wondered, “Should people try to understand computers better, or should computers do that instead? Because getting computers to do that may be easier, but people would make this world a better place.” My interests aligned towards research after my project Speed Limits and Traffic. It followed the Design For Research approach, that utilises making to resolve biases in order to attain data and conduct the study. My need to switch tasks to keep me productive made the process less tedious. I feel comfortable with the idea of doing multiple things and balancing life out, thank you Srishti. Some other projects I pursued include ?Plants- interaction design to reconnect with plants: an intervention to the working households, Sounderstands- IxD for emotional intimacy between mother and child, and I started seeing value in behavior inducing kinds of experiences, subjective for each user group. I have a big extended family, so a lot of little cousins I feel affection for. Each new time I see them, I see how they are making sense of the world, so confidently on so little real understanding, and leading a joyous life. I wonder how I was at their age and how much I have learnt since. But there was always a sense of responsibility associated with imparting knowledge in the right way. What is the right way? Computationally, what would be the most optimised way of gaining enough information about something, minimising chances of comprehending incorrectly? There are so many different ways in which a wrong experience can lead to disruptive thoughts and behaviours, how are teachers so good at handling that? I often wonder why when I consider teaching as a practice. My internship at Mathscapes was about children and teaching them the core of artificial intelligence and machine learning, along with developing tools for an HCI interested. The world-wide shallow understanding of Human Centered Design lies in UX in the commercial world. I want to take it a step further towards creating the right experiences around machines. I took up a research internship away from the mainstream choice wanting to explore a little more than I have throughout. I saw the user group- children as an opportunity to study themes of rationality, the correctness of machine decisions and how concepts can and should be broken down for fuller participation and experiences. Acknowledging that collaboration and participatory learning are enriching experiences, I have begun to value patterns as the root of all connections, human and technological. Proceeding and positioning at different levels, every action has consequences that affect more than we see. The right set parameters can make efficient systems, and my study aims to find those combinations around technological interventions. Shaping my life with decisions I don’t completely comprehend, I continue to work hard and be good at what I know.